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Bull's company raided

Broadcast Date: Dec. 19, 1978

Gerald Bull's Space Research Corporation is in trouble. The CBC Television program the fifth estate has shown that the company broke a United Nations embargo by shipping weapons parts to apartheid South Africa. The RCMP has investigated and is now gathering more evidence at Bull's headquarters in Highwater, Que. The company's security staff isn't happy to see them — or, as this clip shows, the CBC reporter.

Bull's company raided

• In the years following the end of HARP, Bull expanded his company, buying more land at the Highwater site and building a manufacturing centre on the Quebec side. His Martlet shell had been a revolutionary design, and he focused on designing and manufacturing other types of artillery that were vast improvements on existing technology.

• With the help of influential friends in Washington, Bull became a U.S. citizen by a special act of Congress in 1972. This was in part because he'd long had access to top-secret U.S. weapons research, which was against security laws for non-Americans.
• Bull concentrated on pitching his new artillery designs to the United States at first, but was soon dealing with Belgium and Israel. He also sold air traffic control simulators to South Africa.

• The United Nations imposed a voluntary embargo on dealing arms to South Africa in 1963 as a response to apartheid, South Africa's policy of racial discrimination. The embargo became mandatory in 1977. The UN's goal was to pressure South Africa to end apartheid.

Bull's company raided

Medium: Television

Program: National News

Broadcast Date: Dec. 19, 1978

Guest(s):

Host: Knowlton Nash
Reporter: Don Murray

Duration: 1:38

Last updated:
Nov. 29, 2003